326 MANAGEMENT OF HOUNDS. 



against their drawing his coverts, selecting the freshest 

 and last caught or least injured. This fox will be care- 

 fully concealed in some out-of-the-way place, and let 

 loose the same morning the hounds are expected. This 

 being done, the keeper puts on a bold face, and goes to 

 meet the hounds, in apparently the most cordial manner. 

 If asked about foxes, he will demurely say, " I think 

 you will find. Sir, in our coverts this morning ;" or he 

 may complain, as some do, " of being eaten up with 

 foxes." 



The huntsman and hounds are the most likely to find 

 out this old gentleman in his tricks. Let the former 

 carefully observe the behaviour of his old hounds, when 

 the fox is found, and also when he is killed; for they 

 will tell him to a certainty whether the fox has been 

 handled or not. Let the pads also, the brush and neck, 

 be well examined before he is given to the hounds. The 

 fox being turned down perhaps two or" three hours be- 

 fore the hounds arrive, will have had time to roll himself, 

 and become tolerably fresh and sweet, so that he may 

 deceive all except the old hounds, master, huntsman, 

 whips, and the whole field. Upon these occasions the 

 keeper or his assistants will be the first, perhaps, to 

 halloa the fox. They sometimes overshoot the mark in 

 their eagerness. I suspect a ^oil found by a keeper, and 

 not by the hounds, having been played these tricks myself, 

 but 1 always found them out. 



I was once drawing a ticklish place of this sort, where 

 I knew foxes were trapped regularly, when in the mid- 

 dle of a large covert, the keeper began halloaing and 

 screaming in a bye drive. We were down with him in 

 a twinkling. " Well," I said, " what's all that clatter 



